Ma’am Q

29th January 2018

Lessons from Ma’am Q – 

“in order to have effective change it needs to come from the people, right here, living in these conditions, they need to be the ones to change it.”

 Ma’am Q speaking in relation to the 2,500 people who came onto the streets to deliver a petition signed by over 10,000 people to the City’s Mayor demanding clean and safe sanitation facilities for people living in informal settlements like Khayelitsha.

Ma’am Q is an organiser with the Social Justice Coalition. We first met her in Cape Town in 2016.

Here she was leading residents of Kayelitsha Township in campaigns for public resources, safety for citizens and accountability of government in ‘post-Apartheid’ South Africa, where racial and spatial inequality leaves millions of people living in ‘informal settlements’.

Video: Work of the SJC